Monday, October 23, 2006

You learn things while you travel. You learn, for example, that you can't get an oil change in Denver on a Sunday, presumably because Colorado's proximity to Utah forces it to act religious and respect the Sabbath, even though people in Denver like John Elway more than God. And who could blame them? He'll cut you a deal on a used Acura. God never does. You learn that it's illegal for any road in Kansas to curve or turn or have anything resembling what you and I consider civilization within a twenty mile radius. You learn that if you see a family dressed in construction-cone orange, you can assume they'll have some sort of hooved carcass shoved awkwardly in the back of their rusted Jeep. You also learn about Hot Mama.

Now, Hot Mama is not a laughing matter. Hot Mama must be feared and respected, not unlike your dad's chainsaw or the neighbor's mentally unbalanced Pug. Hot Mama lives in a jar, covered in brine, and is encased in a red balloon of hideous rubbery somesuch. Hot Mama can be eaten, although calling her edible is stretching that word to the furthest hinterlands of its legal definition.

Let me explain.

We were somewhere in Utah when our gas gauge suddenly dipped to levels which could best be described as dangerous. The problem was, by the time we realized this, we were nearly a hundred miles from the nearest "town" on the freeway and, with the prospect of a horror-movie style breakdown in the middle of Whoknowswhere Utah, we decided to head twenty miles off the beaten path to Ferron, a bustling metropolis of a couple hundred, connected to the highway via a road paved once since the Spanish American War. We arrived, gassed up, drank burnt coffee devoid of flavor and caffiene. And then I saw her. Over by the carbonated syrup machine. A giant jar of Hot Mamas.

The ingredients, in order: Beef, soy, beef heart, cereal, spices of various levels of sickening horror.

We laughed. We walked outside. We made towards the car. And then, something happened. I can't explain what, but suddenly, we had decided that someone needed to eat Hot Mama. Not surprisingly, nobody volunteered. So we played Odds & Evens (ostensibly the bastardchild of Rock, Paper, Scissors) and, well, when I say no one wanted to lose, I'm putting it mildly. If there was a way to cheat, I would've cheated. I didn't. I won, in the sense that I wasn't Peter. We all won in that sense. Except Peter.

From about the time Pete threw a 1 while the rest of us threw 2s, no one could stop laughing, and that laughter soon devolved into spastic weeping. Part of the bet was, in the spirit of The Three Muskateers (the book, not the candy bar), if one guy had to eat most of Hot Mama, the other guys had to take a bite, just for the sake of comraderie. Plus, if it was poisonous, we'd die together. Optimism: not exactly running rampant.

It's hard to properly explain the stench of Hot Mama. Imagine fast food jalepenos smothered in gasoline. It's easier to describe her habitat: a plastic tub, filled with blood red brine, packed sardine tight with identical, ancient sausages. It's disturbing to even remember her taste. It resembled the smell, like most tastes do as it turns out, but the texture was something altogether more intense. Unbeknownst to us, Hot Mama was three layers thick: the outer, waterballoony casing, a mantle of greyish sinew, and a core of brown. Brown what? you might ask. Brown-I-don't-know, I might answer. And without getting too graphic, biting into Hot Mama was like biting into a meat plum filled with creamed dirt.

Okay. Probably too graphic.

So, let's move on. I've spent far too long talking about Hot Mama. It was a good bonding experience though. Not unlike spending five years in a Vietnamese P.O.W. camp together.

But tour is more than collective suffering. It's also about music. We, once again, got lucky with our tourmates in La Rocca and Los Abandoned. Last night was our first of roughly seven evenings together and, well, we really enjoyed both of their sets. Added bonuses: Pilar from Los Abandoned has a ukulele, which bodes well for late night hoe-downing. La Rocca are all from Dublin which means great accents. Both bands get all dressy too, which means I personally will spend the whole tour feeling like a man in pajamas at a debutante ball. I didn't have a whole lot of time to get to know La Rocca last night, but Los Abandoned stayed around late, ate at the adjacent table, and proved to be great people. I'm excited for this tour, even if it is, as it is, barely a week long. Tonight, Lawrence Kansis. Tomorrow Minnesota. Maybe we'll see more snow and gawk at it like the Californians that we are.

By the way: the proof is in the pudding. Or the brine, in this case. See below. (Regardless of the fact I called it Big Mama, perhaps thinking of Cat on A Hot Tin Roof, perhaps having lost my mind far too early this tour)....sent via sidecrack...

6 comments:

very descriptive, my stomach churns. I hope that jar was not expired! but then again do pickled products ever expire? or do they just turn a nasty pale brownish color in a milky liquid that used to be clear. I had a large jar of kosher dills that looked like they were floating happily in a sea of egg whites once. someone must have popped the seal and not refrigerated after opening. They went from the pantry to the disposal.I wish you all well. Stay warm

...If you could play the ukulele, we could play a ukulele song, and while you play the ukulele,you could get your friends to sing along.....

Tenuto, you're forgetting that John Elway also delivers back-to-back Super Bowl wins and countless enjoyable Sunday afternoons. I'm quite certain that God's never done that. BTW, are you guys going to be able to make it for the fantasy basketball draft? We've got five signed up already, not including any monsters and/or monster hangers-on. Draft time is Saturday at 12:30 PST. I can change it, but you gotta let me know.